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Interesting. After reading the back and forth between Signal and Facebook, I think Facebook’s argument is stronger. It sounds plausible that Signal’s account w

Interesting. After reading the back and forth between Signal and Facebook, I think Facebook’s argument is stronger. It sounds plausible that Signal’s account was briefly suspended due to a payment issue, and someone in Signal’s marketing is simply mistaken, confused, and/or inexperienced at using Facebook’s ad campaign tools.

shoto_io 5y ago
These tools get more and more complicated by the day, so that could very well be
- NoPicklez 5y ago
  Looking at the screenshot provided by Signal it's pretty clear that the account is disabled due to some sort of payment dispute and/or account balance problem.
  - SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
    They have plausible deniability because FB bans are well known to be totally opaque. They don't like to tell you what you did wrong.
    - NoPicklez 5y ago
      The image they posted clearly has a statement on it next to the account disable banner which relates to an account balance problem. It also has 0 rejected ads against the campaign. Doesn't seem to be totally opaque to me.
  - toast0 5y ago
    Disclosure: I worked at FB, but my only exposure to ads was in an advisory role on an ads product that as far as i know hasn't launched and doesn't seem to be launching soon and my advice wasn't taken anyway. Looking at the big modal style box in the middle of the screenshot it says: "Ad Account Disabled This ad account, its ads and some of its advertising assets are disabled. You can't use it to run ads." And there's a see details button. Maybe the see details indicates a fixable problem, and some of the text behind seems to maybe indicate a fixable payment problem, but it's not clear at all from the text of the big box that the problem is fixable. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that when Facebook says you can't use this account to run ads, it means you can't use that account to run ads, end of story. There's not a call to action to contact customer support or fix the payment or anything, just disabled, you can't run ads. I'm looking at this image https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0lx59fWEAI9HcX?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0lx59fWEAI9HcX?format=jpg&name=...
    - NoPicklez 5y ago
      From looking at the screenshot behind the dialogue box there is a link to "verify the account", which looks to me like an initial fix. My point being that being told that I cannot run ads, doesn't mean that Facebook doesn't like my ad campaign. There are many reasons I would think why an ad account is disabled, to simply assume this was because FB didn't like your campaign despite having no rejected ads doesn't seem very smart and is a big call. If Signal had followed through to try resolve the problem and had actual evidence that it was due to the nature of the campaign, then they should be showing that, not conjecture.
      - toast0 5y ago
        It's super unclear. Verify the account should fix the 'Ad account status warning', since it's in that section. But if that would fix the ad account disabled, you'd expect to see it mentioned in the modal's text. And why is it an ad account status warning if you need to fix it to proceed. I mean maybe Signal overreacted if the text in the big box didn't mean what it said. But I don't expect them to be experts at running advertising campaigns; and I kind of expect advertising campaigns to be easier; at least if it's supposed to be self-serve. If you're expected to work with an ad rep, sure it can be clunky and hard; train the reps, sell to Fortune 500, cash the big checks, whatever. Maybe the story here should be bad FB UI drives away advertiser who thought they were banned.
        NoPicklez 5y ago
        That's my point, if it's not clear exactly why the account is disabled, it is irresponsible of Signal to create a blog post blaming it on Facebook simply not liking their ad campaign. This isn't a couple of Tweets sent out harmlessly by Signal during troubleshooting, they wrote an official blog post about it. Signal should have verified the problem first, then ran the ads campaign and posted a legitimate response from Facebook regarding why. The situation makes Signal look nefarious.
        toast0 5y ago
- johnchristopher 5y ago
  I am in IT, I got a sting at social marketing for 5 years and I am slowly backing away from facebook and GA. You can't do both and keep up-to-date on the tools and their usage at the same time.

shoto_io 5y ago

These tools get more and more complicated by the day, so that could very well be

NoPicklez 5y ago
Looking at the screenshot provided by Signal it's pretty clear that the account is disabled due to some sort of payment dispute and/or account balance problem.
- SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
  They have plausible deniability because FB bans are well known to be totally opaque. They don't like to tell you what you did wrong.
  - NoPicklez 5y ago
    The image they posted clearly has a statement on it next to the account disable banner which relates to an account balance problem. It also has 0 rejected ads against the campaign. Doesn't seem to be totally opaque to me.
- toast0 5y ago
  Disclosure: I worked at FB, but my only exposure to ads was in an advisory role on an ads product that as far as i know hasn't launched and doesn't seem to be launching soon and my advice wasn't taken anyway. Looking at the big modal style box in the middle of the screenshot it says: "Ad Account Disabled This ad account, its ads and some of its advertising assets are disabled. You can't use it to run ads." And there's a see details button. Maybe the see details indicates a fixable problem, and some of the text behind seems to maybe indicate a fixable payment problem, but it's not clear at all from the text of the big box that the problem is fixable. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that when Facebook says you can't use this account to run ads, it means you can't use that account to run ads, end of story. There's not a call to action to contact customer support or fix the payment or anything, just disabled, you can't run ads. I'm looking at this image https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0lx59fWEAI9HcX?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0lx59fWEAI9HcX?format=jpg&name=...
  - NoPicklez 5y ago
    From looking at the screenshot behind the dialogue box there is a link to "verify the account", which looks to me like an initial fix. My point being that being told that I cannot run ads, doesn't mean that Facebook doesn't like my ad campaign. There are many reasons I would think why an ad account is disabled, to simply assume this was because FB didn't like your campaign despite having no rejected ads doesn't seem very smart and is a big call. If Signal had followed through to try resolve the problem and had actual evidence that it was due to the nature of the campaign, then they should be showing that, not conjecture.
    - toast0 5y ago
      It's super unclear. Verify the account should fix the 'Ad account status warning', since it's in that section. But if that would fix the ad account disabled, you'd expect to see it mentioned in the modal's text. And why is it an ad account status warning if you need to fix it to proceed. I mean maybe Signal overreacted if the text in the big box didn't mean what it said. But I don't expect them to be experts at running advertising campaigns; and I kind of expect advertising campaigns to be easier; at least if it's supposed to be self-serve. If you're expected to work with an ad rep, sure it can be clunky and hard; train the reps, sell to Fortune 500, cash the big checks, whatever. Maybe the story here should be bad FB UI drives away advertiser who thought they were banned.
      - NoPicklez 5y ago
        That's my point, if it's not clear exactly why the account is disabled, it is irresponsible of Signal to create a blog post blaming it on Facebook simply not liking their ad campaign. This isn't a couple of Tweets sent out harmlessly by Signal during troubleshooting, they wrote an official blog post about it. Signal should have verified the problem first, then ran the ads campaign and posted a legitimate response from Facebook regarding why. The situation makes Signal look nefarious.
        toast0 5y ago
johnchristopher 5y ago
I am in IT, I got a sting at social marketing for 5 years and I am slowly backing away from facebook and GA. You can't do both and keep up-to-date on the tools and their usage at the same time.